Friday Afternoon Commute - Everybody runs, sometimes

Good Afternoon. Happy 29th birthday to Mrs. Washcycle.

The Atlantic published results from an observation of red light and stop sign compliance in Portland.

The report [PDF] is available here, and shows that of the 497 cars observed only 36 ran red lights, while 58 of the 99 bicycles observed blew right through. That's about 7 percent of cars compared to 58 percent of bicycles. Two of the three intersections the students chose to study have a cycle track, or a bicycle lane separated from traffic lanes. The researchers found that cyclists were more likely to run red lights at the intersections with the cycle track, with about 70 percent of riders running lights compared to less than 40 percent on the shared street intersection.

A separate study "showed bicyclists came to a complete stop only 7 percent of the time. It also showed that motorists stop completely only 22 percent of the time."

The headline calls out cyclists, but I think compliance is pretty low for both groups, so maybe the headline "Most people break the law" would be more accurate. Could be filed in the obvious section. If only 22% of drivers stop at stop signs, then they also have "selective vision when it comes to stop signs and traffic signals."

I wonder how they count "cars observed." Not every car that comes to an intersection and stops has a chance to run a red light. If you are driving and desperately want to run the light, but the two cars in front of you don't, you are largely screwed; but on a bike, you're almost never boxed in. Running is always an option. So what is the count for those who had an opportunity to run the light, I wonder.

The data on the difference between compliance on roads with cycletracks and those without is new and interesting.

"While it's not likely that cyclists will begin to comply fully with the laws of the road, this study does shed some more light on the potential dangers of the road." How it does this, the author never says. What has been shown is that cyclists don't comply with these laws as often as drivers, and drivers comply less than 100%. It doesn't show that the behavior of cyclists is dangerous. In fact there is no mention of crashes, injuries or fatalities, which is what you would need to make any conclusions about safety. In Idaho most of this behavior by cyclists would be legal, and all the evidence points to it being as safe as the status quo, if not safer.

"And though bike-person accidents aren't incredibly widespread, they do happen." - in my experience this is usually because or wrong-way cycling, sidewalk-cycling and jaywalking.

"Even more concerning should be the increasing potential of car-bike accidents that can occur when stop lights are ignored." What increasing potential? Where are the facts?

"But there's also a danger that the more comfortable we get going green on a red, the more likely we are to relax our reflexes and de-elevate our senses to the four-wheeled threats that surround us." Again, Idaho stands in direct contradiction to this.

The City Paper got in on it too, with Shani Hilton also calling it dangerous - but later saying that the feeling of anxiety erratic behavior causes can leed to hostility. But I'd point out that it most cyclists run stop signs and red lights, then it shouldn't be "unpredictable." It should be expected.

As part of a fare restructuring, Metro might "reduce the fee for bicycle lockers to $120 based on low demand for lockers." I guess raising the fare was a mistake then?

OK, maybe the bike lanes on Wisconsin are back on. "Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2E voted to approve the first phase of a District Department of Transportation project that would restrict traffic on Wisconsin Avenue to allow for widened sidewalks and the addition of bike lanes."

Comments

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I didn't want to tip the City Paper discussion too far in to bike zealot territory, but that's a given here...

How does a badly constructed second-year social science methodology project paper make it into The Atlantic Cities? Is it part of Berg's (hypothetical) broad anti-bike agenda, or just brainless pay-by-the-word blogging?

The class paper is pretty much crap as research, IMHO. They picked study sites based on proximity to campus and guesses about traffic volume, two of the intersections involve the same monitored road, no bike-free intersections (or car-free ones!) were monitored as controls, and sampling was apparently done at irregular intervals - though that's hard to tell because the figures are badly formatted.

I don't blame them for writing the report that way because I don't know what the assignment was, but at the same time I can't understand how The Oregonian and The Atlantic Cities would both publish actual journalism based on the report as it stands.

In addition to DaveS's comment, one of the comments on the Atlantic notes that two of the intersections were T intersections where cyclists continuing straight across the top of the T did not risk any interference with auto traffic due to the presence of a bike lane. That makes it hardly surprising that many of them ignored stop signals.

@Brian: My understanding is that (and of course "laws vary from state to state") the car-lane traffic control does not apply to a bike lane crossing the top of a 'T', but the bike lane may have its own traffic control device.

I wonder how they count "cars observed." Not every car that comes to an intersection and stops has a chance to run a red light. If you are driving and desperately want to run the light, but the two cars in front of you don't, you are largely screwed; but on a bike, you're almost never boxed in. Running is always an option. So what is the count for those who had an opportunity to run the light, I wonder.

This is the same effect you see with speeding. Drivers always point to some number like, "There's a 50% compliance with speed limits" when in fact, cars that are obstructed by congestion tend not to speed. Those that can, do.

And you completely nailed it with the "unpredictable" question. First of all, it should be expected. Second of all, what's upsetting to drivers is that they can't drive as fast as they would on a totally deserted street.

You see the same anger and frustration from drivers when talking about congested downtown areas with lots of pedestrians. "If only all pedestrians would GTFOOMY, traffic would flow much more smoothly."

Pedestrians and cyclists on the streets are an indicator of a healthy urban environment. We need more, not less of this. The fact that things become less orderly increases safety. That's a good thing. And increased driver inconvenience is an inevitable byproduct of that.